598. The Root of All Suffering

“What…!?”

Their hands clashed as they engaged in close quarter combat. Between each strike that each perfectly blocked due to their similar AGI, high HP pool as well as their precognition their weapons were fired at close range.

“How ready are you to know the truth? How ready are you to face the immeasurable? My interference is no blight. It’s a blessing. Wouldn’t it be easier to stop this nonsense? Frost… How much more are you going to endure when you can just sleep –!?”

“I’ve come this far already and I’m not going to stop! Do you think I’m like you!? Wanting to keep the past in the past unresolved selfishly because of arbitrary rules!?”

Frost saw red again as both barrels of their guns landed on each other’s heads, smoke rising from their barrels as they locked eyes. The shadowy Galia carried the golden eyes of an Angel.

Neither made a move, as both saw all outcomes.

“Is it because of your Affinity that you believe that the past should shackle people!? That it should all stay there unresolved!? I knew a child that begged for someone to find her! If it weren’t for this power, then she never would have been found!”

Frost’s hand trembled, her voice quivering with endless hatred.

“How burdensome. To shackle yourself to the same chains that seize the very core of themselves. Why endure what they have when they can’t even help themselves?”

Dark Memoria despised how Frost desperately strove to uncover the past. To open unhealed wounds and scratch at bloody scabs. The past was sacred to Dark Memoria. It was not something that should be touched by others.

“The way to the past is a painful voyage. I consider this a mercy. Attachment is the root of all suffering, as it is a core part of us… The past should never be touched. Interference of time only causes more misery.”

“… Is that how you truly see it…?”

Frost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This Aberrations effectively told her to abandon her aspirations to save people. Her weapon gradually lowered from Dark Memoria’s head as something unsettling stirred within her chest.

“What about the people who don’t have the courage to ask for help…?”

Frost had seen it over and over again. The suffering caused by the treatment of the past. Greif caused by those that could not let go. Misery derived from shackles of trauma that prevented people from freeing themselves.

“Or the people who stubbornly hold onto the past, blaming themselves for something they couldn’t avoid?”

Her body trembled uncontrollably. The clock reached thirty minutes to midnight now. The backwards ticking disappeared as the skies continued to move in reverse. Frost choked on her emotions as stray strands of hair turned white, and with it, a thousand golden orbs were summoned into existence all around them.

Then, with an ominous voice, Frost uttered in a whisper.

“Tell me… if attachment is so sacred to you… then why… tell me why it had to make Ber Corrupt. Why Res had to suffer holding it in for all this time?”

< One Thousand Eyed Bird has Manifested as the Second State >

“If we hadn’t reached out to her… if she didn’t cut off her attachment…”

Frost’s eyes glowed brightly all of a sudden, moments before a shadowy maw attempted to devour the Dark Memoria. She dodged it with ease as Frost, with her infinite hatred and combined sense of judgement shouted at the top of her lungs.

“THEN SHE WOULD HAVE STAYED AS A CORRUPTED! I’ll never understand you. I’ll never forgive you… How can you tell me to abandon them so easily. Is that how you felt, Dark Memoria? Tell me… is that what you would have done to Sinder!?”

A deafening silence followed. The ceasefire deeply unsettled Frost as she watched Dark Memoria reach to cup her eyes.

“… How long do you think I’ve tried to save him? How many loops did it take until it all felt helpless? This misery of mine… this suffering… I don’t wish anyone to experience it. The futility of it all. The helplessness of failure. The despair of repeating through loops only for the thing I desperate wished to save to die miserably tens of thousands of times, over millions of years.”

Attachment.

It all stemmed back to the old world. The reason why Dark Memoria was so adamant about preserving the past was because of her failures. The endless repetition that brought forth a trauma so powerful that it gave birth to an Aberration of Elysia.

“Sinder…

Frost.

I’m doing this for your own good. You will find the wall you cannot possibly climb in due time. You will feel the despair I have felt from my attachment. And I… do not wish that.”

Day turned to night again as the days rapidly counted backwards. The ruins of Paradise were gradually restored as they were propelled faster back in time.

“Will you still stubbornly face it head on?”

“I have to. Because I’m the only one that can. Unlike you, I’ll never give up. Failure isn’t an option for me. It’s not just one person I want to protect. Besides… I can’t turn back the clock to save someone’s life. I only get one chance. I don’t know the gravity of your suffering. Don’t expect me to either. And if I fail, then I’ll just find another way!”

“… Another way…”

“We move forward, not backwards. I want to use what’s back there to know how to push people forward. Because all I’ve seen it do is keep people stuck both in the past and present. I don’t expect you to understand, but this is my resolve! I would also do everything in my power to bring someone I loved back.”

Frost took up her arm and pointed it at Dark Memoria, knowing well that the next stage of combat was upon them.

“BUT I WOULDN’T CONDEMN THE WORLD BECAUSE OF IT EITHER!”

Likewise, her opponent raised her weapon towards Frost.

Somehow, the air surrounding Dark Memoria changed. It was as if she was confused, lost but equally curious.

“I despise the human perspective. Like Her, you have a glorified fetish for saving others. But in the end, Her power is derived from you, the Captured Star. It is no wonder that you can reverse the Corruption…”

She trailed off unexpectedly. There was more she wanted to say but held back, giggling to herself.

“Fifteen minutes to midnight.”

And without another word, they resumed their firefight, painting all of Paradise with black and white lines that soon resembled thin, dead trees. And before long, the Markers that served as walls steadily disappeared.

Regular, pale walls that stood at a towering fifty meters surrounded Paradise as the surrounding landscape returned to its original, pre-Paradise Lost state.